About Me

Monday, February 17, 2014

Honor The Man You Love

Today a young couple came into the shop and bought a fire engine. She was so delighted and loving to him. She looked at him adoringly and asked if she could have it. He nodded yes while at the same time saying, "happy wife, happy life." They made me happy. They seemed to have it figured out. She wanted the fire engine to honor him. He is a fireman. He was cool about it, but you could see how proud he was that he was so loved. I told her to keep honoring her man, because he would honor her in a million ways in return. Then I told her that Jed had just died, and she cried with me.

It's been two weeks and three days since Jed gently left us without him. We got him home from the hospital with precision. Everyone and everything was working for us. He was surrounded by the loves of his life and he had important times with them all. His body just gradually stopped working, and in the end, I was asleep holding his hand and Ubaldo was next to him with his hand on his heart.
In those two weeks and three days, we've done lots of "business" to finalize his life, planned and executed a celebration of his life which was on movie night, our last date. We've gone gambling and to the auction and on a spa outing with friends, and we've adopted the biggest dog in the world. All these are recognizable distractions. I say, "we" because I'm not alone in my pain. Ubaldo is feeling the greatest sense of loss, so we are supporting one another.

No one ever told me to honor the man I love. Somehow I just did. But it was easy, because he gave me laughter. We had so much fun. We laughed every day and explored possibilities beyond either of our imaginations. When things got hard, and sometimes they got really hard, somehow we were able look at it later and laugh. Oh, how I will miss that joy. Jed used to say the same thing the young man did today, "happy wife, happy life." And I would say something stupid like, "look, it's not your job to make me happy." He would just look at me and twinkle. Well, it wasn't his job, but it sure was his role.

Living without him will have it's advantages. I won't feel the need to always be home, I will be able to travel more...that's about it. It wasn't hard taking care of him these last almost five years. It was just different. Life was still quite wonderful and we talked of amazing futures and we continued to laugh about almost everything. Tomorrow is our 25th anniversary. I want more. But I will glow in the knowledge that we honored one another by the joy we had in our marriage. If I were an advice column I would tell young people to build relationship with people who love you for who you are, and can laugh with you throughout it all. As hard as it is to know I don't have Jed by my side, I know he is holding me up, prompting me on and loving me from where he is. And, he's probably telling me to take a drink of water, so I won't cry so much. This dying stuff ain't for sissys.